SO YOUR DOING A SHOW
MC’ing
If your running a mixed bill show or you would like someone to compare yours picking the right person to MC is crucial. What, vibe or tone do you want to set for your show?
If you are Mc’ing between every act is not your opportunity do do your whole set. Respect your time whether your the MC or on the bill going over means your taking time from another act.
Crowd work is being interested in what the audience are saying. Don’t expect every response to be funny. It’s not their job to provide you with material, its your job to find it.
Just being nasty to the audience isn’t roasting. Slurs are not jokes. A Comic has to get on after you and if you’ve annoyed the room their hardly going to have a good set or stay when they have to keep seeing you.
Creating a Line Up or Mixed Bill Show
Variety is key. An all male line-up is fine, exactly that just fine. People come to variety shows for just that, variety. When creating a line up think about what will keep the room interested and also its also worth considering what you are suggesting by not including for example female or LGBTQA+ acts, whether it’s intended or not you could be alienating people.
Doing A Podcast
Podcasts are not you just rambling on with your mates about things you find funny. Even when that’s what some popular ones appear to be. They are most likely structured and scripted or the best 20 minutes of three hours of recording. Unless your a certain bald short man who puts the whole thing up and bores the world into submission. (Don’t bother saying yeah but it was the number 1 podcast in the world, Green Book won an Oscar. Doesn’t mean it’s any good!)
Promoting Your Show
Start as soon as your can, interest takes a long time to build. Make it clear what your show is, work in progress, improv, first full hour. This makes make expectations reasonable.
Don’t rely on the venue to do everything. There is only so much they can do with there resources and regular customers. Target your marketing to areas where you think the type of people your material is aimed at would be. You know best.
The visuals matter. Don’t pick an entirely nonsensical image for your poster.
Don’t rely on facebook adds and social media. Clicks and likes very rarely result in sales.
Do not rely on your friends and family attending. If I had a nickel for every time a comic said my friends are going to come and nobody showed up, well. I’d have a bag of unusable currency.
Whether your doing your first solo show, running a mixed bill night or doing a podcast. Here is some advice I wish someone had given me 14 years ago. Actually, they probably did but I just wasn’t listening.
Writing Your Show
1. Find your theme, test, review and cut the fat.
Sometimes themes develop naturally as your write material, sometimes thinking about what you want your show to be about is a great starting point, and remember not everything is golden, even if you like it.
2. Go To Open Mic Nights
Practicing at home isn’t the same as doing it in front of an audience. Your sofa won’t interrupt you, spill their drink and order a full Sunday dinner during your set. (Actually happened once.)
3. Structure
Ask yourself what atmosphere do you want to create at the start of your set. It’s a good idea to put material your less confident in in the middles and don’t finish flat! Separating your set into chapters is also a great way to help remember your material. Some people use 4 x15 method to do this, separate an hour set into four 15 minute sets or, you could separate each section by theme. Use the method that works best for you.
4. If you use callbacks make sure the joke your referencing was clear in the first place.
5. Don’t Rely on Crowd Work
Fully improvised stand-up shows can be done but you have to make sure that the audience knows that. Just doing crowd work can get boring and you run the risk of looking extremely unprepared or lazy.
6. Don’t Steal
Even if you didn’t intend to. If someone tells you they heard something before, check it out. If they think you’ve copied other people will too. Sometimes people have similar ideas, this happens but ask your self. Is this really important to my set? How can I make it more unique? Why am I Saying it?
7. Naming Your Show
Don’t try and by too smart. If people have to think to long about what it means they likely won’t think it’s for them. Ask yourself, What is it actually about? and What does it say about you? The Shorter the better.
The Performance
Atmosphere matters. What mood are you trying to set? Think about your opening music, how the stage looks, what type of seating do you want? Formal rows like a theatre show or sofas for something more casual.
Keep it tight! Don’t waste time with waffle unless you have too.
Don’t be disheartened if you make a mistake or something doesn’t land, acknowledge it if you want but just keep moving and try not to loose confidence. Often if is an audience thinks an act has lost confidence, they loose confidence in the act.
Even worse don’t get angry with an audience. If there talking politely or humourously ask them to be quiet, don’t be to aggressive. From my experience people who talk loudly at shows are not the most self aware or reasonable. Give them a reason to yell more and they will.
Don’t be annoyed with them if they don’t instantly think your fantastic and get all your jokes. You are trying to entertain them they aren’t there to entertain you. I’m not saying you have to change your material for every room you are in but just except you aren’t going to be everyones cup off tea all the time. Humour is subjective and you have more chance of getting a room to warm to you if they like you, maybe even a pint after. Being likable is half the battle.
And finally…
Don’t tell other acts you don’t care, aren’t nervous at all and haven’t written anything, because if you die on stage we won’t have any sympathy for you. It is also very disheartening to the other acts, the promoters and venues working hard to put on your show.